We will have to disagree on the ifantilized part, parents dress their kids like they are minature adults, pierced ears etc. Abortion can be debated intellectually..but when a lower IQ woman abandons a child at birth many are disgusted and want her punished but if 4 mos earlier she aborts the fetus some consider her some kind of hero. WTH? I was in college in the early 70s and I heard many abortion supporters tell me that by eliminating unwanted children abuse of children would decrease. I argued then that abortion devalues children and objectifies them and there would be more abuse because children would become objects not a human child to be cherished, loved and protected. I lost and abortion is common but abuse is even higher...
mmm, I don't think I've ever seen an argument on the subject where those getting abortions are described as
heroes.
I also reject the connection between toddlers and first trimester. In fact, I reject the notion that a newborn is even comparable to a toddler on biological basis.
Humans are not like the rest of the animal kingdom. Humans are expelled from the female body at 9 months b/c that is the point when the mother's metabolism can no longer keep up with the energy needs of the parasite -- regardless of how much she eats, it cannot be processed fast enough to keep both organisms alive. The human brain is still only a portion of its size at this point in time and developing.
This is not the case with the rest of the animal kingdom, where newborns come into the world very near fully developed. Cetaceans are born knowing how to fundamentally be a cetacean. Even our close relatives, monkeys, are born with considerable ease (it literally just plops out like it was no big deal). Dogs and Cats give birth to a litter... and they're fully ready to be transplanted in a matter of months. But it takes humans the better part of a year just to walk and the brain more than doubles in size in the first ~18months. Most mammals can fend for themselves to some degree within weeks or months (though they may stay w/mature animals longer for safety); humans aren't self-sufficient until perhaps ~5 at the earliest, and not truly until closer to 10. 10-12 is generally the age ancient societies started giving responsibilities to children.
This is also why human society evolves generation to generation; while the animal kingdom overwhelmingly does the same thing for thousands of years on end. We're born with our hardware undeveloped and incomplete and almost no software; whereas the rest of the animal kingdom is born complete and hardwired.
It's also exactly what makes the violation of a child so despicable and disturbing.
A short version of much the same information:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b036mrrj
And if you prefer to read:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/advantages-of-helpless/